Sustainability & Roundabouts: KEENE NH PIONEERING

[George Rheault]

The New York Times did a nice cheerleading piece on the 25 year journey that Keene NH traveled to making roundabouts a primary transportation tool.  The link below is free via the Boston Globe's boston.com website (The Globe is owned by the NYTimes).

Cutting emissions, the roundabout way, in New Hampshire

https://www.boston.com/news/environment/2025/10/24/cutting-emissions-the-roundabout-way-in-new-hampshire/

The tough thing about roundabouts is they do require a lot of curb relocations and roadway disturbances and even eminent domain takings to get the correct geometry.  

This does not make them absurdly expensive but due to the significant effort it is often paired with other needed infrastructure improvements in the same footprint so the headline costs of the combined work often makes them appear very pricey. 

This is what is happening for the Gorham's Corner project.  Far more money is being spent on the sewer and water main and other underground utility upgrades but the huge benefit of everyone only disturbing the roadbed ONCE versus serially over 7-20 years saves a lot of energy and community anger.

Portland already has targeted some areas for roundabouts but a comprehensive long-range plan would be really great.